Mercy
by ignitesthestars
Summary: After the events at the Spinning Wheel, the Darkling calls to Alina in his grief. This time, she answers.


Her fist swallowed her screams, or at least most of them. The forest around her took care of the rest; no one came running.

Alina felt it then, the vibration along that invisible tether. She pushed away from it, butthe Darkling _pulled_, reeling her in. Anguish reverberated along the line, his and hers until she could no longer tell the difference between them.

She was tired. Spent. So she let him drag her under.

He was standing on the remains of the eastern terrace. The exact spot, Alina realised, where Baghra had gone over. Grief clutched at her, but it was a pale thing in comparison to the emotion rolling off him.

She hated that. That he could have so effortlessly torn through her life yet again, only to demand her presence now to bear witness to _his_ pain. To overwhelm her even further, like she existed solely for him and his needs.

"Turn him back," she her own ears, she sounded exactly as she was - wrecked, exhausted. Ruined. A part of her wondered if she sounded that way to him.

"I will turn him back," he said, and there was an emptiness in his voice that exceeded anything Alina had the capabilities to understand, "when my mother lives."

Her face twisted, and she was running at him before her brain could give her body instruction.

"As though the two were related!" she spat, slamming a fist into her shoulder. It jostled him, but not enough to send him in his mother's footsteps. For a single second, the destruction of Nikolai's mountain hideaway was revealed to her in stunning, awful clarity. And then she recoiled, clutching her hand to her chest as though burnt. The anger curled up in her throat, and died there. "As though you didn't force this on _both_ of them."

"_Me_?" He rounded on her, grey eyes blazing. Shadows unfurled and snapped in the air, but there was no Cut, no means of dispersing her.

He didn't want her to go, which perhaps meant that she should.

She stayed.

The Darkling reached out to grab her, but she she didn't think she could stomach his hands on her, in any capacity. Not that she ever should have, but in this place, where she thought she could still hear the echoes of Nikolai's screams, see the pieces of Sergei, smell the chaos and the fear and the death? She shied away from him, nearly stumbling over her own feet.

"Lay a single finger on me, and I will leave you to your madness and your grief."

Something ugly flickered over those pale features, but his clawed, outstretched hand fell obediently back to his side. She watch it clenched, watched his chest heave with rage and loss, like he hadn't yet figured out how to breathe in a world without his mother.

"What more will you take from me, Alina?" he asked, and there was a plaintiveness to his tone that seemed so unlike him. So out of place in the voice of the Darkling, who had always been so calm and smooth, so untouchable.

But perhaps, not out of place on Aleksander Morozova.

Maybe that was why she didn't laugh in his face, at the idea that she would ever be able to take _anything_ from this man. This monster.

"Only as much as you deserve," she said instead, and watched his face tighten, watched him withdraw from her. He turned back out to the mountains, gaze lingering on the truncated top of the one she had destroyed.

If only she could do that to him here. Put them both out of their misery. But even now, something in her rejected the idea, the very concept of _aloneness_. More than ever, she understood exactly what drove the Darkling.

"She died for your sake," he murmured, fingers curling into the remnants of the railing. "And so I will take her death out on each one of your companions. I will carve it out of the rock of this country, Alina, until you understand exactly what it is to carry this pain with you."

Alina closed her eyes against the truth in his words, against him. "Don't make excuses," she said tiredly. "You were going to do that anyway."

She could still remember his breath ghosting over her ear, the hot press of his lips. _I can be merciful_. Whether she was at his side or opposite him, he wouldn't stop until there was nothing left for in the world but him.

There was a part of her that thought - that knew - it would be easier that way. To let him consume her, take her over, until there was no more Alina Starkov to feel the gaping wound in her soul.

And there was a part of her that would never give into that urge. Because too many sacrifices had been made already, too much blood dying the Ravkan soil black. To give in now would make all of that pointless.

Alina opened her eyes again.

"And she didn't die for me, Aleksander."

A shudder rippled through him. Nothing in Alina moved her to comfort the man, but neither did she leave.


End file.
